BP said on Tuesday that it had set aside $32.2 billion to pay for the biggest offshore oil spill in United States history. But the company acknowledged that its costs might be much higher — especially if it was found grossly negligent, criminally liable or was faced with a huge jury award for punitive damages in connection with the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 people and sent millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The financial hit will be reduced by a $10 billion tax credit the company is entitled to receive for its spill costs. To improve its future flexibility, BP outlined a program to triple its planned asset sales to raise as much as $30 billion and halve its debt. BP also confirmed that Robert Dudley, the American in charge of its spill response in the gulf, would replace Tony Hayward as chief executive on Oct. 1. Although the new BP will be a leaner company that produces about 12 percent less oil than it does today, the moves do not amount to a radical transformation of the company, which has suffered a series of accidents in the last five years. Instead, they show how ...
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